Are Americans ready for the lab-grown hamburger? To curb meat demands, scientists are working on a meat-like product born from a petri dish. CC BY: jonfeinstein/ www.jonfeinstein.com

November 15, 2011

ADVERTISEMENT

Sign Up for

Our free email newsletters

10 things you need to know today

Today's best articles

The week's best photojournalism

Today's top cartoons

Daily business briefing

Lab-grown meat is coming. But growing a burger in a petri dish won't be cheap, at least not at first, says Mark Post, a vascular biologist determined to grow "cultured meat" in his lab. Eventually, though, costs will drop as the process is refined. Then in vitro meat could have a huge economic impact, helping satisfy rising global demand while saving land, water, and energy costs. It could even be a solution to global warming. Here's a look at how the sausage of the future gets made, by the numbers: